Exercise apparatuses commonly employ a weight stack actuated by a cable which is pulled by users of the apparatus. Recently, resistive elastic members, such as bands or plates, have been incorporated into exercise equipment to provide motion resistance. Specifically, resistive elastic members have gained increased popularity due to their ability to provide substantially consistent tension throughout the desired range of motion and generate an increased use of stabilizer muscles to oppose the substantially consistent tension.
While the use of resistive elastic members provides many benefits, traditional apparatus configurations can present limitations affecting the usefulness of the exercise apparatus. For example, the range of exercises which may be performed with certain cable actuated apparatuses is sometimes limited by the position and orientation of the apparatus itself. Particularly, with the added range of motion and resistance offered by the use of resistive elastic members, such as bands and plates, consumer needs and considerations are often at odds. Additionally, traditional uses of resistive elastic members have been limited to substantially linear axial motions that are opposed by the force of the elastic member material.
One type of resistance based apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,250,022 assigned to ICON IP, INC. In this patent, an exercise machine includes a number of resilient elongate members oriented horizontally such that the intermediate portion of the elongate members engage a fulcrum of the exercise machine. A user adjusts the amount or resistance provided by capturing different combinations and numbers of resilient elongate members. An alternative resistance based apparatus is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,689,025 issued to Daniel W. Emick. In this patent, an exercise machine is described that uses a hand crank to selectively modify the effective length of rubber tubing that is used for resistance training by axially extending the rubber tubing after the length has been modified to a desired length.